Investor's Corner
Tesla buyers eye new EV bill that extends $7500 tax credit and removes 200k cap
A bill to remove the 200,000-vehicle cap for electric car manufacturers and extend the $7,500 tax credit for new EVs until 2028 gained more supporters recently, with Rep. Darren Soto (D-FL) and Rep. James P. McGovern (D-MA) signing as cosponsors of H.R.6274, also known as the Electric CARS Act of 2018.
The Electric CARS Act of 2018 was initially proposed by Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) on June 28, 2018, right at the time when Tesla was closing in on delivering its 200,000th vehicle in the United States. Under H.R.6274, the present $7,500 tax credit given to buyers of new electric cars would be extended all the way up to 2028. Electric car makers such as Tesla would also not be faced with the 200,000-vehicle limit that triggers a tax credit phase-out. Tax credits will also be given for the electric cars’ charging stations.
While a 10-year extension of the $7,500 tax credit is a welcome improvement over the previous system, what is really quite impressive with H.R.6274 is the fact that buyers of electric cars would be able to use the amount as a direct rebate for their vehicles upon purchase. This means that car buyers could get an immediate discount for their vehicle, instead of waiting until taxes are filed before receiving their electric car’s $7,500 tax credit. Such a system would make quality electric cars such as the Standard Range RWD Tesla Model 3, which is priced at $35,000 before options, attainable to an even bigger demographic.
When Congressman Welch unveiled H.R.6274 last June, he noted that the United States must transition to a form of transportation that reduces greenhouse emissions in the country.
“Transportation is the single largest contributor to greenhouse emissions in the United States. It is urgent that we transition to cleaner, more efficient modes of transportation. We are in a race for the winner of the technology for electric vehicles, and this credit is going to help spur that,” he said.
Rep. Welch reiterated these points in a recent interview with Alex Guberman of YouTube’s E for Electric channel, where he discussed his motivations for H.R.6274. According to Rep. Welch, the demand for electric cars and a recognition for change in transportations is emerging, and the benefits won’t stop there.
“What I am seeing is, among some of my colleagues, a recognition that the people they represent want an electric vehicle. And, there is real potential job growth if we can give a boost to the electric vehicle industry,” Welch said.
The Electric CARS Act of 2018 currently has four cosponsors, with Rep. Darren Soto (D-FL) and Rep. James P. McGovern (D-MA) joining Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA) and Rep. Jacky Rosen(D-NV), who supported the bill the day it was proposed. As of date, H.R.6274 has been referred to the House Committee of Ways and Means.
Tesla recently announced that it has sold its 200,000th vehicle in the United States this July. With the announcement, the $7,500 tax credit under the current system is now on a phase-out period, with buyers who receive their vehicles until the end of Q4 2018 being the final batch of Tesla owners who would be eligible for the full $7,500 tax credit. After December, the federal tax credit is set to be reduced by half to $3,750 from Q1 to Q2 2019, followed by another reduction to $1,875 from Q3 to Q4 2019. Under the current system, Tesla’s vehicles delivered after Q4 2019 would not be eligible for any tax credits at all.
Watch Rep. Peter Welch’s interview in E for Electric in the video below.
Tesla has scheduled its Earnings Call for Q4 and Full Year 2025 for next Wednesday, January 28, at 5:30 p.m. EST, and investors are already preparing to get some answers from executives regarding a wide variety of topics.
The company accepts several questions from retail investors through the platform Say, which then allows shareholders to vote on the best questions.
Tesla does not answer anything regarding future product releases, but they are willing to shed light on current timelines, progress of certain projects, and other plans.
There are five questions that range over a variety of topics, including SpaceX, Full Self-Driving, Robotaxi, and Optimus, which are currently in the lead to be asked and potentially answered by Elon Musk and other Tesla executives:
- You once said: Loyalty deserves loyalty. Will long-term Tesla shareholders still be prioritized if SpaceX does an IPO?
- Our Take – With a lot of speculation regarding an incoming SpaceX IPO, Tesla investors, especially long-term ones, should be able to benefit from an early opportunity to purchase shares. This has been discussed endlessly over the past year, and we must be getting close to it.
- When is FSD going to be 100% unsupervised?
- Our Take – Musk said today that this is essentially a solved problem, and it could be available in the U.S. by the end of this year.
- What is the current bottleneck to increase Robotaxi deployment & personal use unsupervised FSD? The safety/performance of the most recent models or people to monitor robots, robotaxis, in-car, or remotely? Or something else?
- Our Take – The bottleneck seems to be based on data, which Musk said Tesla needs 10 billion miles of data to achieve unsupervised FSD. Once that happens, regulatory issues will be what hold things up from moving forward.
- Regarding Optimus, could you share the current number of units deployed in Tesla factories and actively performing production tasks? What specific roles or operations are they handling, and how has their integration impacted factory efficiency or output?
- Our Take – Optimus is going to have a larger role in factories moving forward, and later this year, they will have larger responsibilities.
- Can you please tie purchased FSD to our owner accounts vs. locked to the car? This will help us enjoy it in any Tesla we drive/buy and reward us for hanging in so long, some of us since 2017.
- Our Take – This is a good one and should get us some additional information on the FSD transfer plans and Subscription-only model that Tesla will adopt soon.
Tesla will have its Earnings Call on Wednesday, January 28.
Elon Musk
Tesla locks in Elon Musk’s top problem solver as it enters its most ambitious era
The generous equity award was disclosed by the electric vehicle maker in a recent regulatory filing.
Tesla has granted Senior Vice President of Automotive Tom Zhu more than 520,000 stock options, tying a significant portion of his compensation to the company’s long-term performance.
The generous equity award was disclosed by the electric vehicle maker in a recent regulatory filing.
Tesla secures top talent
According to a Form 4 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Tom Zhu received 520,021 stock options with an exercise price of $435.80 per share. Since the award will not fully vest until March 5, 2031, Zhu must remain at Tesla for more than five years to realize the award’s full benefit.
Considering that Tesla shares are currently trading at around the $445 to $450 per share level, Zhu will really only see gains in his equity award if Tesla’s stock price sees a notable rise over the years, as noted in a Sina Finance report.
Still, even at today’s prices, Zhu’s stock award is already worth over $230 million. If Tesla reaches the market cap targets set forth in Elon Musk’s 2025 CEO Performance Award, Zhu would become a billionaire from this equity award alone.
Tesla’s problem solver
Zhu joined Tesla in April 2014 and initially led the company’s Supercharger rollout in China. Later that year, he assumed the leadership of Tesla’s China business, where he played a central role in Tesla’s localization efforts, including expanding retail and service networks, and later, overseeing the development of Gigafactory Shanghai.
Zhu’s efforts helped transform China into one of Tesla’s most important markets and production hubs. In 2023, Tesla promoted Zhu to Senior Vice President of Automotive, placing him among the company’s core global executives and expanding his influence beyond China. He has since garnered a reputation as the company’s problem solver, being tapped by Elon Musk to help ramp Giga Texas’s vehicle production.
With this in mind, Tesla’s recent filing seems to suggest that the company is locking in its top talent as it enters its newest, most ambitious era to date. As could be seen in the targets of Elon Musk’s 2025 pay package, Tesla is now aiming to be the world’s largest company by market cap, and it is aiming to achieve production levels that are unheard of. Zhu’s talents would definitely be of use in this stage of the company’s growth.
Tesla analyst Andrew Percoco of Morgan Stanley teased the company’s dominance in its self-driving initiative, stating that its lead over competitors is “not even close.”
Percoco recently overtook coverage of Tesla stock from Adam Jonas, who had covered the company at Morgan Stanley for years. Percoco is handling Tesla now that Jonas is covering embodied AI stocks and no longer automotive.
His first move after grabbing coverage was to adjust the price target from $410 to $425, as well as the rating from ‘Overweight’ to ‘Equal Weight.’
Percoco’s new note regarding Tesla highlights the company’s extensive lead in self-driving and autonomy projects, something that it has plenty of competition in, but has established its prowess over the past few years.
He writes:
“It’s not even close. Tesla continues to lead in autonomous driving, even as Nvidia rolls out new technology aimed at helping other automakers build driverless systems.”
Percoco’s main point regarding Tesla’s advantage is the company’s ability to collect large amounts of training data through its massive fleet, as millions of cars are driving throughout the world and gathering millions of miles of vehicle behavior on the road.
This is the main point that Percoco makes regarding Tesla’s lead in the entire autonomy sector: data is King, and Tesla has the most of it.
One big story that has hit the news over the past week is that of NVIDIA and its own self-driving suite, called Alpamayo. NVIDIA launched this open-source AI program last week, but it differs from Tesla’s in a significant fashion, especially from a hardware perspective, as it plans to use a combination of LiDAR, Radar, and Vision (Cameras) to operate.
Percoco said that NVIDIA’s announcement does not impact Morgan Stanley’s long-term opinions on Tesla and its strength or prowess in self-driving.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang commends Tesla’s Elon Musk for early belief
And, for what it’s worth, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang even said some remarkable things about Tesla following the launch of Alpamayo:
“I think the Tesla stack is the most advanced autonomous vehicle stack in the world. I’m fairly certain they were already using end-to-end AI. Whether their AI did reasoning or not is somewhat secondary to that first part.”
Percoco reiterated both the $425 price target and the ‘Equal Weight’ rating on Tesla shares.
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